Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Arkansas (Battleship # 33; later BB-33), 1912-1946

USS Arkansas, a 26,000 ton Wyoming
class battleship, was built at Camden, New Jersey. Commissioned
in September 1912, she spent her first seven years of service
with the Atlantic Fleet. In 1913, Arkansascruised
in the Mediterranean, and in 1914 she participated in the
U.S. intervention in Mexico. During July-December 1918, she operated
with the British Grand Fleet as World War I approached and reached
its conclusion.

Transiting the Panama Canal in July 1919, Arkansas joined
the Pacific Fleet, remaining there for two years before returning
to the Atlantic. She carried Naval Academy midshipmen on cruises
to Europe in 1923 and 1924, and to the west coast in 1925. After
the latter voyage, the battleship underwent extensive modernization,
receiving new oil-fired boilers, additional deck armor and a changed
appearance, with only one smokestack and "basket" mast
in place of the previous two of each. Through the next two decades,
Arkansas primarily served in the Atlantic area, making
annual Midshipmen's cruises to Europe in 1929-31 and 1934-37.
In 1932-34, she operated along the west coast on training operations,
a mission that largely occupied her through the 1930s.

After war broke out in Europe in 1939, Arkansas continued
her training duties, and, as relations with Germany deteriorated,
took part in "operations short of war". In the summer
of 1941, she escorted occupation forces to Iceland and was present
when President Roosevelt met Prime Minister Churchill at the Atlantic
Charter Conference. Once the United States formally entered the
war in December 1941, Arkansas was employed escorting Atlantic
convoys, as well as performing more training work. An overhaul
in March-June 1942 again changed her appearance, with a new tripod
foremast replacing the previous "basket" type. Her combat
experience began in June 1944, when she used her twelve-inch guns
to support the Normandy
invasion and in bombardments of German defenses at Cherbourg.
In August, she participated in the invasion of Southern France.

Arkansas went to the Pacific in November 1944, crossing
the ocean to the war zone early in the next year. In February-May
1945, she supported the conquests of Iwo
Jima and Okinawa. Once Japan had surrendered, she transported
veterans home from bases in the Pacific. By now thoroughly obsolete,
the old battleship was assigned a final mission, to serve as a
target ship for atomic bomb tests at Bikini, in the Marshalls.
She survived the initial test, an air-burst, but was anchored
in close proximity to the bomb used in the 25 July 1946 underwater
shot. Arkansas was engulfed in the column of water driven
up by the powerful blast and quickly sank. She remains on the
bottom of Bikini Atoll to this day.

Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S.
National Archives.

Online Image: 57KB; 740 x 615 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through
the National Archives photographic
reproduction system.

Photo #: 19-N-77075

USS Arkansas (BB-33)

Anchored in San Pedro harbor, California, on 1 January 1945.
A tanker and a Navy attack transport (APA) are in the background.

Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S.
National Archives.

Online Image: 121KB; 740 x 605 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through
the National Archives photographic
reproduction system.

The lead ship in the following photograph is either USS
Arkansas or her sister, USS Wyoming:

Photo #: NH 105079

Battleships of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet

Steaming in column formation, circa 1914.
Photographed by Enrique Muller, New York.
The leading ship is either USS Wyoming (BB-32) or USS
Arkansas (BB-33).
Note the dense smoke produced by these coal-burning ships.